Visit Park Guell – Gaudi Goes Outdoors

Gaudi didn’t just design indoors, Park Guell is a great testament to his skill in an outside space. If you are looking to visit Park Guell to see the gorgeous architecture, here are 5 Top tips for visiting Park Guell.

5 Top tips for visiting Park Guell

Go early

Take water, pack a hat and sunscreen in summer

See most of the park for free

Pre-book tickets online

Take proper footwear

Key Info

But there’s more:

The famous Gaudi Salamander, go on stroke the Lizard!

About Park Guell

Once again Antoni Gaudi‘s ‘modernisme’ design style is let loose to rampage through Park Guell creating one of the most impressive Gaudi projects in the city. Gaudi and Eusebi Güell had a long history of collaboration dating back to 1878.

Mosaics Abound – 5 top tips for visiting Park Guell

The two worked on various projects around Barcelona including Finca Güell and Palau Güell and there was certainly a mutual trust and respect between the two men. Gaudi was Guell’s first choice as architect and designer for the construction of the Park.

Construction of Park Guell started in 1900 and at that time, the site was still in a rural setting as the city had not expanded that far out. A far cry from today!

The outside of Park Guell

Originally, It Wasn’t Supposed To Be A Park

Originally designed as an estate for well-off families, the initial idea was to give the monied elite of Barcelona an estate to live on in peace and harmony but due to a lack of interest, only two of the sixty houses were built.

It was then kept by Guell as a large private garden. Guell allowed it to be used for public events up until his death in 1918. Then it was purchased by the city council and opened as a park in 1926.

Consequently, Park Guell was declared a UNESCO heritage site in 1984! Until fairly recently it was free to enter the monumental zone part of Park Guell, sadly, this is not the case now. Unless you are a local resident that is!

Gaudi’s spiralling Columns in Park Guell

5 Top tips for Park Guell – Explained

1. Go Early

Number 1 of my 5 top tips for visiting Park Guell is maybe the most important. The best time, of course, is to visit Park Guell is early! It opens at 8.30am in the low season and 8.00am in summer. (Entry is set in ‘Time Bands’, every 30 minutes, so you just can’t turn up and walk in, visitor numbers are limited in each Time Band).

So, if you get there early, there will be nobody in the park before you and you will be able to get decent photos without too many people in. Of course, another advantage of going early in the summer is that it gets hot, really hot, on summer afternoons in Barcelona!

2. Take water, pack a hat and sunscreen in summer

Yes, I know I’m not your Mum but really, trust me on this one! There is, of course, somewhere to buy water and food in the park. But, as you would expect, it’s more expensive as you are a captive audience. The park is set on a hillside and coupled with the fact that, even in Winter, Barcelona is mild, so you will get warm.

After lots of walking around Park Guell and the Monumental zone, you’ll be glad you did! There are shady areas under trees and structures in the park but even so that dazzling Mediterranean sunshine will, in particular, take it’s toll.

3. See most of Park Guell for Free

Park Guell free entry you say? I’m all ears! It is only the centre bit of Park Guell, the monumental zone, that you need to pay for. That is the bit in yellow on the map below. Everything else is free.

But there’s a catch!

The pictures here of the buildings, columns and the Salamander are all in the monumental zone which is €10.00.

Is the Park Guell monumental Zone worth it? Personally, I would say yes it is. You wouldn’t see the famous Salamander, which is on loads of Barcelona memorabilia. However, if you want to see Gaudi’s house you have to pay separately. Even though it is outside the monumental zone, it is an additional €5.50 to enter. You do, however, get perfectly good views of the outside for free!

Park Guell Map

Access to Park Guell. The yellow bit is the monumental zone

4. Pre-book tickets online

Why? Because you may not get in!! For a general ticket, It’s €10.00 online. Also, if the time band is full, you will have to wait! To book tickets online, visit the website.

Pack a hat, sunscreen and water!

5. Take Proper Footwear

The park is big and, as mentioned before, it is set on a hillside. Do be sure to wear appropriate shoes that are comfortable, obviously, and good for walking. The park has some paving, however, other pathways are dirt tracks.

So, is it worth visiting Park Guell?

Mosaics Abound – 5 top tips for visiting Park Guell

Visiting Park Guell

As I have said before about Gaudi’s other works, they are very difficult to describe. Consequently, that is why on my other blogs about Gaudi, I have attached a gallery of pictures at the bottom of each.

This one is no exception.

The sheer uniqueness of Park Guell makes this gallery necessary so you can appreciate its weirdness in all its glory! I often wonder how Gaudi’s mind worked!

5 top tips for visiting Park Guell

Inside Park Guell

To me, it has a feel of Portmeirion in Wales about it. That quirkiness is familiar if you have been there or seen it on TV in The Prisoner. My recommendation, for what its worth would be to visit Park Guell first on your Gaudi trail.

Why?

Now, of course, there is a reason I say this. I found Park Guell amazing, inspiring, perplexing and many other words ending in ‘ing’. I also found it, when compared to the other Gaudi buildings I visited, slightly naive and childlike.

That, however, is not a criticism. Even though chronologically I am wrong, it feels like his first work.

5 top tips for visiting Park Guell

Be that as it may, I was the only one who felt like this. Tam, however, didn’t find it childlike at all. It’s not often we disagree on things like this.

We talked about it extensively over a lovely dinner and, obviously, several glasses of wine. The discussions were wide-ranging, with persuasive arguments for and against.

But in the end, I was told I was wrong.

So, there we go, I still felt it worth mentioning though…

The Eccentricenglishman and Tam visit Park Guell

Tam had her own thoughts about visiting Park Guell

“Park Guell is so well advertised you think they are referring to the whole park. But no, tickets are for just the monumental core, perhaps a sixth of the whole park. The core is stunning, mosaic everywhere, showing Gaudi’s renowned sense of colour.

Curves reign again, it’s almost like he took Casa Battlo’s back garden and popped it up here on the hill! It’s a shame it’s so busy, it would be lovely to get there when there is no-one about, to really get a sense of what Gaudi was trying to achieve without having to squint past hoards of other tourists!

Don’t forget to wander around the rest of the park, (Gaudi’s house, for example, is outside of the core area) there aren’t any mosaics but you can still sense Gaudi in every twist, turn and viaduct.”

As I mentioned earlier, The Gaudi House museum costs an additional €5.50 to get in. This is where Gaudi lived from 1906 to 1925 and is well worth a look.

Casa Gaudi in Park Guell

What’s the bottom line?

To do the Monumental Core and Casa Gaudi it’ll cost about €13-14 euros depending how you get your tickets. That’s cheap, well, compared to Casa Batllo….

How to get to Park Guell

Click on the map to get directions to Park Guell

How to get to Park Guell by Metro

The nearest metro stop to Park Guell? You have a choice of two.

Metro, green line (L3), Lesseps or Vallcarca stations

From the Lesseps stop on line 3, it is a 15-minute walk,

From the Vallcarca stop on line 3, it is a 15-minute walk,

Although for my money, Lesseps is the best station to go for as it is a more straightforward route!

It must be pointed out though, we got a taxi to Park Guell as we had already done plenty of walking that day! Taxis are surprisingly cheap for a big city and official taxis are black and yellow.

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Eccentric Englishman

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The Eccentric Englishman.
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